The Scariest Moment Of My Life.

The back of the photo says it was taken on June 1982 and although you may not believe me, I remember this like it happened yesterday,
Because…It was the scariest moment of my life!

Aye that’s right.
When I was a kid my Mum & Dad bought a big 5 foot tall terrifying knitted clown and put it to bed with me.
- Every night!
- For years!
They thought I liked it!
…Right up until I could talk and tell them everything. Y’know, how I’d been living in fear etc…

That clown is long gone now. I threw it out myself.
I’m 30 in a couple of weeks and sometimes, just sometimes, I get the feeling that it’s just waiting to show up again and whisper bad things in my ears like it used to.

“Kill for me baby Alan! Kill for me and I’ll give you all the rusks you want!” it would say.

I can’t go on.
The memories are still just too disturbing for me

“Gimmie My Money And Make It Snappy.”

I’m sick of the nosey-as-fuck, false, inane & patronising chat you get from folk who work in banks.
It’s all: “What are you doing today?”, “Where do you work?” etc…
LIKE IT’S ANY OF THEIR BUSINESS.

I hate the obvious fakery of it and I hate how desperate these employees are to please their bosses.
Typically, I just reply to every question with: “None of your business, gimme my money and make it snappy.”
I shouldn’t have to be that rude.  Unfortunately, that’s how it is.

It’s almost as if  the banks tell their employees to ask really nosey questions and they never ever come off as a simple, genuine “Hi, how are you?”
You always feel that there’s something sinister under the questions and that you’re standing there getting your privacy totally invaded by someone who’s talking to you like they know you.
I hate that.
It doesn’t need to be like that.
 
I wish the banks would just ditch the fake interest in you and replace it with counting out my money in the style of The Count from Sesame Street:
“One! Ah-ha-ha-ha. Two! Ah-ha-ha-ha. Three! Ah-ha-ha-ha” etc…

I know I’d be a happier customer.

Like, A Rolling …Stoned

All week I’ve had this overwhelming urge to get stoned.
The urge has come from nowhere and all of a sudden but it’s there.

I’m almost 30.
I have weird hair, orange sideburns and I listen to Neil Young & Bob Dylan all night.
Surprisingly, I don’t smoke grass or hash.
Not anymore.
I haven’t smoked any properly since I was about 19 or 20 and yet here I am today thinking about it.

I’ve never really missed my days as a stoner.
I smoked a lot for a long time and although it was great to spend my days on wasteground, learning my guitar, I always felt that I didn’t really get enough done.

I’d have all these possibly great ideas and I’d get up really early and start them off and then I’d have my first smoke of the day and next thing you know, I’m taking it easy and I can’t be bothered to do any of the things I was gonna do that day.

That’s pretty much the main reason I stopped getting stoned.
Smoking a quarter a day and drinkg tea tended to get in the way of doing all of those things I wanted to do.

Because I couldn’t be bothered.

If there’s a real danger with smoking hash and grass then it’s this:
You can turn you into a lazy, lethargic, dreamy, boring loser.
- Depending on how much you smoke.

Don’t get me wrong,
I’ve had some brilliant stoned experiences!
Like the time I managed to get a hold of some Gold Seal and I spent an entire hour thinking that the reflection in a big puddle was the reality and that I was the reflection!

So I gave up mainly because it made me lazy but also because I could no longer communicate with my pals.
My friends who didn’t smoke began to have no idea what I was on about anymore and my other friends who smoked a helluva lot more than me started to find the most unfunny things hilarious and seemed content to be lazy.

So I just stopped doing it one day and that was that.
I tend to overthink everything and smoking only opens up other doors that I don’t need.
I don’t miss having 17 joints a day but this week I’ve been thinking that 1 would be nice.

Fuck it though.
I think I’ll just boil the kettle and have a cup of tea and a cigarette.

The Old College Bar, Glasgow.

This is a photo of the inside of The Old College Bar on High Street, Glasgow:

I like it here.
It’s dark as fuck all of the time and I’ve spent many a midnight sat right there in the middle of that bar.
It’s basically a seedy juke-joint.

Last year John from the bar did me a huge favour.
But that’s none of your buisness.

I asked him if there was anything I could do for him and he said:
“Aye. Come in here to this bar one time when nobody’s around with your camera and take pictures of the entire bar for me”.
When I asked him why he said:
“Because. I want to build a fucking replica of this bar in my house!”

I just thought to myself:
“Fair enough”.

So here we are John:
(Click on the photos to enlarge them).

P.S: All of these photos were taken in the middle of the afternoon.

Al Cook’s “Necropolis” …Coming Soon…

I’ve been secretly working on a new project for a wee while now.
It’s almost ready.

Bad things are coming.
Shocking & disturbing things.

You’re all invited too.

I’ve set up a brand new blog for this THING and you can find it right HERE.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.